Racism on the Web: Its rhetoric and marketing

Poster (1989) and Schiller (1996) point out that electronic communications have the power to change social and political relationships. The ‘new’ discourse of the Internet has political uses in spreading neo-Nazi ideology and action. I look at two kinds of online neo-Nazi discourse: hate speech itself, including text, music, online radio broadcasts, and images that exhort users to act against target groups; and persuasive rhetoric that does not directly enunciate but ultimately promotes or justifies violence. The online location of these discourses poses urgent questions. Does information technology make the re-emergence of prejudicial messages and attitudes swifter and more likely? Does the Internet's wide range of distribution make for more followers and finally more persuasion?     

Spontaneous recovery without interference: Why remembering is adaptive

Spontaneous recovery from extinction is a reliable result of two ingredients, variable training outcomes and the passage of time. Accounts of the phenomenon, which have come to focus on interference at the level of memory retrieval, have been based on simple associative learning tasks. The present study was designed to determine whether a more complex task—one requiring spatial mapping, timing, and patch assessment—would be subject to spontaneous recovery. Results showed that spontaneous recovery (1) makes a robust appearance in such tasks, (2) does not require interference among conflicting memories, but instead (3) requires ready access to training memories, and (4) is closely modeled by the temporal weighting rule, a quantitative model of patch choice that prescribes how value is best assigned to variable resources (L. D. Devenport & J. A. Devenport, 1994).     

The Effects of International Economic Trends on Gender Equity in Schooling

Educational conditions and opportunities for female pupils, in comparison with male pupils, vary considerably between countries. In the past researchers have tended to explain these conditions in terms of national and local factors. Recently, however, some researchers have begun to focus on the influence of global economic trends in this area. This article describes a survey of 120 countries, examining the influence of economic globalization on gender equity in secondary schools. The article concludes that this influence is significant and should be taken into account by policy- makers.     

Decisions and attitudes concerning child sexual abuse: does the gender of the perpetrator make a difference to child protection professionals?

Objective: An investigation was conducted into whether child protection investigators, specifically social workers and the police, are as likely to take seriously a case of child sexual abuse if it had been perpetrated by a female rather than a male. Also, to examine whether the decisions relating to female-perpetrated abuse were predicted by participants’ sex role perceptions of women and their attitudes concerning women’s sexualized behavior towards children.Method: Participants advocated decisions in response to four hypothetical case of child sexual abuse in which the perpetrator was either male or female. The female perpetrators were then rated on femininity and masculinity characteristics and attitudes concerning women’s sexualized behavior toward children were assessed.Results: Following male—rather than female—perpetrated sexual abuse, case registration and imprisonment of the perpetrator was considered more appropriate by all participant groups; male social workers also considered social services involvement and investigation as more appropriate. A substantial number of decisions concerning female perpetrated abuse were predicted by participants’ attitudes.Conclusion: While child protection professionals considered child sexual abuse perpetrated by females to be a serious issue warranting intervention, a number of advocated decisions suggested that they did not consider female-perpetrated abuse to be as serious as male-perpetrated abuse. The implication is that victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by a woman may be less likely to receive the protection afforded victims of male-perpetrated abuse. Furthermore, professionals’ practices may be inadvertently perpetuating the view that female child sexual abuse is rare or less harmful than abuse carried out by males.Spanish abstract was not available at time of publication.     

Parenting Teamwork: The Impact of a Fathering Intervention on Mothers and Infants in Vietnam

A multifaceted, relationally focused intervention involving group and individual pre- and postnatal counseling, print resources, and community resources encouraged 390 fathers of newborn infants in Vietnam to responsively support mothers and work with them as a parenting team. Both partners completed questionnaires prebirth and 1-, 4-, and 9-months postbirth on measures of breastfeeding support, exclusive breastfeeding duration, relationship quality, and infant development. Compared to 412 comparison group couples, intervention couples evidenced greater father support, especially in terms of helping and responsiveness to the mother's needs. This support predicted longer exclusive breastfeeding duration, improved relationship quality, and higher levels of infant development at 9 months. Sensitively working together with mothers as a coordinated team enhanced couple's relationship functioning and improved children's developmental outcomes.     

寻觅德国的牛津

达勒姆(Dahlem)不仅仅是一个传奇.在德国,几乎没有其他地方像柏林的这片土地那样,在科学史各个丰富的方面--包括令人质疑的方面--表现出如此强烈的活力.在马普学会历史档案馆馆长亨宁(Eckart Henning)的陪同下巡游他的“领地“,就如同在历史的时光中漫步,著名学者的创新精神始终伴随着我们的游程.……     

13个讨老师喜欢的方法

在学校里,那些讨老师喜欢的学生总是能得到更多的帮助。无论是在学习上还是找工作的过程中。老师愿意花时间亲培养他们喜爱的学生。也乐意为其写一份好的就业推荐书。那么,怎样才能成为讨老师喜欢的学生呢？请看本期直面留学。